Sci Fi Lullaby
by Demon-Something
Summary: Nate makes it back from the Institute for the first time. The results are...less than optimal.


For starters, this whole idea was pretty darn stupid and crazy.

Getting dematerialized, like some ancient comic serial, and waltzing right into the secret underground lair of the science-y boogeymen and women terrorizing the Commonweath was not MacCready's idea of a good Sunday afternoon. Nate had different ideas, and MacCready wasn't going to blame him for having them. Nate had been fixated on finding Shaun, and this was the final step of a long process, and an old house foundation in Sanctuary Hills was now the site of this strange dematerializer thingy. So there Nate stood, trying to look resolute on some sort of glowing, sparking, piece of science whatever with some ray gun thing over his head. The whole thing really was quite Hubris Comics: The Daring Vault-Man and his sidekick, MacCready. Piper stood in attendance, biting her nails as Dogmeat frantically whined, leashed to his nearby doghouse. Desdemona stood behind the console with Tinker Tom, the two of them the only unfazed ones there.

"Hey Blue," Piper yelled, "Be safe! See if you can't get MacDonough replaced while you're at it!"

"On it Pipes. How's it looking Tom?" Nate asked.

"Perfect so far. We're almost there, the last of the frequencies need to be adjusted," Tom replied under a frantic clicking of buttons and switches. Desdemona meanwhile was supervising, legs apart, hands on hips, a perfect image of power and confidence. God, she was damn annoying sometimes. So many years trying to clean up the Institute's messes, and only now did Nate actually get to the source for her? For nothing, even. And there Nate fucking stood, about to have some stupid radio magic teleport him, life and limb risked so much no one had even bothered to say it, not even Piper, even though that was her fuc…freaking job. He'd be chain-smoking now, if Piper and Nate hadn't tag teamed him to stop, saying how bad it was. God, won't he have some leverage when this is done…hopefully.

"Yeah, uh, don't die on me Nate!" MacCready pitched in, unsteadily. The humming of the dematerializer grew louder and the construction began to shake, the machine getting closer to its goal, the blue glow above and below Nate growing stronger. A cooling hose came disconnected, spewing out dry ice fumes as Tinker Tom yelled, "We're almost there! We're almost there!" over the mess of sound. Then, with a final rumble and ear-splitting crack, in an electric flash of blue Nate disappeared. A sharp electric tang was all that was left, something that just _smelled_ blue. Utter silence rang out through Sanctuary Hills, leaving the assembled ones staring in anxious disbelief, and the rest of Sanctuary peering out their doors.

"So, he's there right? The Institute?" Piper asked. Desdemona looked back and nodded,

"With all luck, yes, yes he is," Desdemona kept her pursed lips and curt words, her auburn hair and yellow blouse remaining neater than any Wastelander had a right to. She had clearly slept well last night, unlike some others in attendance.

MacCready couldn't believe her confidence. Nate comes in, hands over some plans, has her half-baked tech lackey hammer it into place, and zap, there goes Nate? And that was just supposed to work to her, no questions asked at any stage of this? MacCready felt his eye twitch and his fingers clench over the idea, Desdemona throwing her latest hero into whatever freaking trillion number of molecules Nate was, nothing left, just little tiny pieces of Nate and vault suit and blood and hair and glasses. Then, she'd probably just breathe it, use it, exhale it without so much as a cough, and prance on to free another synth, tromping on more Nates around the Commonwealth…

A tap on his shoulder caused him to look up. Desdemona and Tom had already up and left, go figure. Piper stood behind him, her eyes gentle and concerned, biting down on her lip.

"Hey, you doin' okay?"

MacCready spent a few moments collecting his thoughts and just breathing.

"I just don't think he's okay."

"None of us do, MacCready. What's so different about it? No one's really okay for that long, you'd know."

MaCready sighed, "Look, I'm pretty sure you've all gone crazy. We take the guy who's holding us all together, put him under some teleporting ray-gun thing, and then just zap him onto the doorstep of the people you spend every day warning about? He's just going pop in, right next to the bosses or head doctors, or whatever on a god…darned Nuka break? Ask for a cup of sugar, some Abraxo, and a baby that belongs to him that they took by mistake? No one's done that, Piper. They're gonna keep him locked up, or get info out of him on the Railroad, or they'll kill him. What if they replace him Piper?" MacCready was frantic and wide-eyed, his hands up by his face, really close to shooting out flecks of spit, "Oh yeah, I almost forgot, what if he didn't even make it? He could be dead and floating all around us, right now!"

Piper bit her lip even harder, scrunching her nose as her lips whitened, taking in what she had just heard, "I just don't know MacCready. I'm really worried for Blue too, but he had to do this…"

"He shouldn't have to do this alone! We should have gone with him, or a different way. The Institute's gotta have air vents or something, or a service elevator or…."

"MacCready!" Piper regained control, "Nate's getting Shaun! You can't stop that! Don't you have your own son anyway?"

MacCready recoiled. That was different, he knew where Duncan was, safe at home, recovering, waiting for his dad to get the caps to come home. No one there got put on ice, had their son stolen away, zapped like a moth on a lamp.

"Yes, Piper, but, it's just…" MacCready trailed off, scratching his back and looking at his shoes, scraping the dirt with them, as if he could pensively tunnel down to the Institute. Piper put her hand on his shoulder.

"Look, I'm worried and antsy too, but we just can't do anything. All we can do is wait,"

MacCready breathed, deflating under Piper's touch, "Okay, fine."

MacCready honestly had no idea where Piper found her stash of bubblegum, gum drops, mints, and other sundry sweets, but she had dug up an entire, unopened box of powdered hot chocolate, and as she stirred the brown powder into the mugs of hot water, MacCready stared from the porch of Nate's house, formerly the carport. He sat down in a blue padded chair as Piper pulled up a seat herself, handing MacCready a chipped mug of chocolate. MacCready took what he was offered and stared into the mug, hoping he could just look up and see Nate walking back, a boy in tow, maybe a few synth parts lying around somehow to liven the mood. He looked up. Still nothing, just Piper.

"What?" she asked, "Your smart mouth won't say thanks?"

"Thank you Piper," he said softly. He took a first sip, and winced as he felt the chocolate burn his tongue. Piper rolled her eyes,

"You must really care about Nate, huh?"

MacCready lifted an eyebrow, his lips tightening, "And you don't?"

Piper sighed, "Of course I do MacCready, Blue's the best man around. There's just nothing I can do, so I'm just going to hope. You seem to be a little more invested than me. I thought you were just a hired gun?"

MacCready squirmed a bit. Of course he wanted caps out of Nate at first, and Nate looked like someone gullible enough to need a babysitter at first. He hadn't returned those caps, even when it got obvious he was just sticking around Nate to not have Winlock and Barnes breathe down his neck and ask for his lunch money. Now that Winlock and Barnes were gone, only Nate himself kept him here, Nate's white Pre-War toothpaste smile able to charm him into anything when Nate could squeeze it out of himself.

"Well, yeah. I don't want to lose a client. He paid the caps, I've got a rep to rebuild after the Gunners," MacCready's jocular tone spat out the words perhaps a little too cleanly and quickly, perhaps a bit too MacCready to be believable.

"Eh, if you say so…MacGreedy," Piper teased.

"Hey!"

"Well, it is just the caps for you…"

"Fine, he's helped me out. A lot. I owe it to at least hope he's alive," MacCready resigned himself to blowing on his hot chocolate trying to cool it off just that last bit more, his mind too muddled to know anything else to say after that. Piper seemed to be in a similar state, taking a small swig from her mug, and looking out at the darkening sky, blue to red to dark blue. MacCready took the first swig, and like every single time he drank something hot he burned his tongue. Nate was going to laugh at him as he glared at the white dot on his stuck out tongue in the mirror tomorrow. Probably. Hopefully. _Maybe._ He set the mug down on the concrete in front of him, but he couldn't unfold his body back the way he was sitting before, the weight of Nate gone crushing him down, looking at a steaming mug.

"You two have been through the same stuff. I don't blame you for acting like this," Piper piped up after what felt like ten minutes. MacCready could feel the sycophantic tone coming on in her voice, "But Nate is…"

MacCready cut her off, just not wanting to hear her voice, "Nate's a big honking boy who can handle himself, I got it!" he yelled. He regretted the outburst almost as quickly as it happened. He let an outburst of air past his cheeks as he slumped into his hands. He didn't bother to look up as he heard the springs squeak in Piper's chair.

"Y'know, we've all done what we can do," she said, her voice tired and wavering, "And if you're going to sulk…"

"Then I'll sulk as much as I damn well want to," MacCready finished. Piper sighed and walked away towards her own quarters next door. MacCready sighed again, realizing that he had preferred Piper's company all along as opposed to the silence, the always concerning buzz of bloatflies marking a Commonwealth night. What felt like twenty minutes went past. MacCready's mind was in a truly thoughtless state, his body perfectly still. This absence of Nate really was tearing him up, more than he wanted to admit. Sure, Nate was handsome, but it wasn't like he was the center of his life anyway. Besides, you kinda really didn't fool around with guys for too long, get on, get off, y'know? At least, that's all he'd learned _with_ guys. That being said, what he had learned had been with the Gunners, and it was increasingly clear they weren't all that normal. So what was a good little MacCready to do, he thought. Nate swirled around his head, his red hair, his smile, his jaw, his ass in that Vault Suit. But behind Nate's figure in his dreams, there were twin ghosts, shot dead and torn, dark shades writhing around the backs of their minds, clawing into their dreams, pods and stations and screams. Things never done and things no one could've ever done. It's what kept Nate isolated from the world in a haze, perhaps it did for himself too. It's what kept Nate back, or at least MacCready thought it did…

God-fucking-dammit, he was really pining, as a grown man, for another grown man. Little Lamplight type shit. He got himself to lurch out of the chair, and head inside towards the old kitchen where his bed was. He was just going to sort all this out if Nate ever came back. If not, if he didn't come back, well, chalk it up as another failure, another ghost, yet another person Grand Sharpshooter Robert Joseph MacCready still couldn't keep enough of a tab on to keep alive. He pulled back the covers, took off his jacket and his shirt, and climbed into bed. After a few tosses and turns, he settled facing a row of studs that was once a wall. Restless yet thoughtless, he stared one stud down until he finally drifted out of consciousness.

MacCready was awoken from a dreamless sleep by Piper, her hands planted on his chest shaking him as if he were choking. MacCready pushed his body up against the force of her arms, to get pushed back into the mattress with a frantic series of squeaks by an even more frantic Piper. Her mouth hung open, trying to force words past a diaphragm clenched into silence out of shock. She stared at him wild eyed, her hat and red coat missing. Finally, she gave up on words, and dragged him out of bed, bare-chested into a cold morning, just before dawn. However, there in the middle on the road stood Nate, his Vault Suit gone, replaced with a loose white jumpsuit with a yellow accent. Crackling static seemed to hang in the air, that same strange bluishness like before. He stood silently, giving a look somewhere between crushed and dazed, his head almost rolling on his shoulders. Piper ran up to Nate, but as she approached him, he brushed her aside and started towards his house, towards MacCready. MacCready could only stand there as Nate stumbled past him and into his house. After another moment, Nate pulled his curtains shut, and he was gone again.

Piper caught up to MacCready, her breathlessness compounded by Nate's stunned reaction. She grabbed MacCready's shoulder, spun him around to face her, grabbed his other shoulder, and pulled him in closer.

"We have to find out what happened," she said, a worrying tinge of excitement seeping into her voice, "Maybe that's the Nate synth!" Piper's voice had gotten faster, her lurid mix of curiosity and fear towards the Institute egging her on, "You were right, I should have listened. What are we going to do, should we just kill him now, or be sneaky...?"

"We are not being sneaky about anything. We're not killing Nate! We don't know what happened down there; that could be Nate, or that could not be Nate, we do not know," MacCready's interjection took on an almost scolding tone, his voice coming across emphasized and angry, "You're all spooky scary mystery over these people, don't you want to find out what they've got?"

"Yes, but they're still dangerous, MacCready. You have to be careful, you saw how people acted in Diamond City!"

"I don't give a shit about Diamond City! Don't you care about Nate? We were both just worried he was gone forever!"

Piper's face softened, taking on a concerned roundness, the tension in her arms turning to slack, "Yes, but I'm scared. I've said so much, pieced together so many scraps…I know enough that what just happened isn't right. They've taken him MacCready, Nate's gone. Oh my God, he's gone, he's gone, he's gone…."

"PIPER!" MacCready yelled. It was loud enough that the light in Sturges and Mama Murphy's house clicked on, but MacCready was going to deal with that later, "He's still there! It's still Nate!" he was starting to shake her a bit, mirroring her own earlier gestures.

Piper kept hyperventilating, "God, how do you know that?" she said, "Look, I've seen people get replaced, this is what they do MacCready. They're stiff, they're weird, they're…robots."

MacCready sighed. It was true, he didn't know. Last time he didn't know like that, Lucy might just be with him still. So he couldn't afford not to know, not now. He was going to make sure Nate was there, and if he wasn't, he'd do right for his memory, all like he couldn't do the first time around.

"Piper, I'll go talk to him, I'll figure it out," uncertainly tacking on the last clause of his sentence, "Just…stay calm, and keep everyone else calm too."

Piper pushed her arms down from MacCready's shoulders to pull him into a hug, "Just make sure Blue's okay," she said, and turned towards the light in Sturges' house. MacCready turned around and walked into Nate's house. He hesitantly stepped over towards his bed, looking over across the living room down the hallway. Silence. Under his bed was his rifle. He reached out for it, but decided against it. Too close quarters, not his favorite situation. MacCready grabbed a salvaged Bowie knife instead, felt neater for this kind of thing. Gunner thinking, all of it, and damn it, he never wanted to apply it to anyone anymore, much less Nate. He froze, felt his eyes mist up. God, let none of this happen, let nothing bad happen. This wasn't necessary, Nate was fine, he was fine, they'd all laugh tonight over some mutfruit…

MacCready pulled his arm back and stuck the knife in his holster. He got up, walked through the doorframe into the hallway, and through the open door on the right. Nate had blocked out the light, and was laying on the mattress, a scratchy gray blanket salvaged from Concord pulled up to his waist. He was perfectly still. MacCready took the first step into the room, the floor squeaking under him, a sharp sound ringing through, tearing through the atmosphere like a claw through rice paper. Nate had no reaction, he lay facing away from MacCready towards the wall, with only faint hints he was even breathing.

"Hey, Nate, how was the daytrip?" MacCready tried to quip as he walked up to the dark wood of the double bed, "Get me a tee shirt?" he chuckled nervously as Nate still wouldn't respond, "A mug, anything…"

"Nate, talk to me, please," nervousness was turning to despair. MacCready's voice was shaking more than he ever wanted it to, his hands nervously clenching, "Nate, please, God, answer me."

Nothing. Nate showed no signs of movement, not lifting his slumped head from the pillow. MacCready climbed onto the bed sitting Indian style next to Nate. MacCready could see that Nate's glasses were askew from his eyes, and a stunned blankness emanated from his eyes and mouth.

"Nate, you gotta talk to me. Please Nate. Please," MacCready could feel the warm pressure behind his eyes, and mother fucker, he didn't want to cry. Let anything happen, let him fall on his own goddamn knife, RJ MacCready wasn't crying. He cried enough when he was kicked out of Lamplight, when Duncan had gone to sleep and it was just him, and it hadn't done shit. He sure as hell didn't need it now.

Nate let out a few noises, mostly just small audible breaths, the act of speaking seemed to be too much to will for Nate. Finally, the first few letters slipped breathily out of his mouth, "It's all ruined."

"Nate, what's all ruined? Nate?"

Nate slumped back down, "Just stay a bit," he said, so softly MacCready could barely hear it, Nate's head still turned to the wall. MacCready placed his hand on Nate's shoulder, sighing softly. As much as MacCready didn't want to admit it, this reminded him of more than a few nights, when he didn't know if he could get milk for Duncan, the both of them crying out for Lucy. MacCready hadn't figured out that much about how much he missed Nora, but this had to be some of it, and who the hell knew what had happened in the Institute. What felt like forever passed, his hand on Nate, Nate's tension and shock and despair remaining. MacCready mulled over what Nate would want. A part of him figured he should be alone, but that wouldn't make Piper happy, and frankly, him neither. Another, deeper part said kiss, but damn, if that wasn't foolish. Instead, he lifted the blanket, and slid his body next to Nate's.

At this point, he gave absolutely no fucks as to whether this was a synth Nate or not, didn't care he was rubbing his wiry chest against Nate's back, damn, if he didn't need to be here. He held Nate, and he swore he was going to stay here as long as the both of them needed, Institute be dammed.

MacCready came to next to Nate a little sticky from the humidity, but thank God, Nate was still here. He's still here. Here. Nate. The two of them, in the yellow light of the afternoon. He turned his head to look at Nate, still asleep and still looking troubled. Whatever had just happened, it couldn't have been good.

MacCready wondered if he should wake Nate back up. There was "You look so peaceful as you sleep," and then there was "You look like a sad sack of tears as you sleep." He wished there was something he could do, all it seemed he could do was try and stop the bleeding that Nora's gash had left across Nate. That was the wrong way of saying, it was the Institute's gash. Now whatever happened, the stitches had torn and it all had just reopened.

MacCready could feel his forearm falling asleep under the bulk of Nate's back. He sighed, knowing full well what was going to happen if he tried to make the tingling stop. He pulled his arm free and shook it, as Nate stirred from his doze.

…"RJ," he whispered, rubbing his eyes and sitting up. Nate stretched his arms as MacCready stumbled for something to say, "Yeah, I'm here...uh…"

Nate looked at him with a pair of relaxed eyes, and gave a nod of understanding. MacCready could still see the melancholy in his face, "It's okay, thanks for staying with me, I really needed that,"

MacCready's chest immediately felt much tighter. This shi...this crap hurt to watch. He had to do something, make Nate feel good again...but what solution was actually out there, if Shaun hadn't come back...Shaun….where was he? Oh God, he was dead too, another kid eaten up by the Wastes?

"Where's Shaun?" MacCready asked, the nerves of flattery quickly replaced by the sharp, metal onset of panicked concern.

Nate, for all he could do, was groan, and slap his hands over his face, "God, RJ, it was all for nothing...I was just so late."

"So he's dead?"

Nate chuckled grimly, "Y'know, I kinda almost wish he was. Make things easier to deal with."

MacCready was now really concerned over what in the hell had just happened, "Look, I don't want to rush you or make you feel like shi...bad more than you need to, but what was down there?"

Nate got up and started walking to the kitchen, "Shaun was down there."

MacCready jumped up and scrambled down the hall, not quite balanced enough to keep his fingertips away from the floor, "Wait, I thought that was a great thing!"

Nate could see the earnest confusion in MacCready's eyes. It pained him to see his best friend caring so much, knowing what had just happened.

"Where do I begin...I wasn't under for ten extra years like I thought."

"So...how long were you under?"

Nate bit his bottom lip, and MacCready could hear him suck in air through his teeth. This wasn't looking good…

"RJ, I was under for sixty," Nate sounded crushed, a whole Vault's worth of weight dumped onto his chest. He looked down at his white shoes, fit for the clean, white Institute, but not here. Not at home.

"Holy fuck, Nate." MacCready didn't like how much he had let slip curse-wise since Nate went to the Institute, but who cared, this stuff was real. Sixty years...so did that mean…

"So...did Shaun grow up down there? His whole life?" MacCready asked.

Nate let out a sigh, a throaty one full of pain. Wearied.

"He runs the goddamned place. They call him Father."

MacCready's jaw dropped. This was not going how either of them expected, and MacCready couldn't imagine any of this. To have Duncan, snatched up like that, to never see him grow up or to see what he would do with most of his life even, it just sounded so...fucked up.

"He still calls me Father RJ, and he's sixty fucking years old!" Nate yelled, suddenly slamming his fist against the counter, tears beginning to well up, "Sixty goddamned years old…"

MacCready decided to test the waters of saying something encouraging, "Well, you still have time with him, right?"

Nate let out another cry and slammed his fist, slumping over the counter resting his elbows on it, "He was toying with me. He made a ten year old version of him, a synth, and tricked me. He's dying, and he wants me to take over, that's the only reason he wants me around, only reason why I even was unfrozen. He wanted me to fight my way to him, he could have zapped me down first thing. See if I could run his sad little hellhole."

MacCready was stunned, his mouth hanging open with not much to say about that. A couple more seconds passed, painfully slowly.

"Goddamn, Nate. That's...that's...I don't know what to say to that. They shot his mom, and now he runs the place? That's some raider shit."

The corner of Nate's mouth cracked upwards in a wan half-grin, "Yeah, it kinda is. The shittiest part of it all though, is what he said about just that."

MacCready let in a sharp intake of breath and moved back a little, "Oh God, I'm not sure I want to know at this point."

Nate visibly steeled himself, took a slow, deep breath, "He said Nora's death was collateral damage, for some greater good."

A sound of hurt left MacCready's throat, and all he could do was just stand there, eyes widened in a frozen cringe of sympathy.

"I know RJ, that was one of the worst things I've ever heard," Nate exhaled again, his cheeks puffing out and lips vibrating, "I'm sorry to have caused a scene, I guess."

Nate straightened his back and walked over to MacCready, slapping his back like nothing bad had happened, "How's everyone else doing?" he asked.

MacCready hesitated for a second, trying to put last night into words, "Well, Piper thinks you're the synth replacement, and she wanted me to kill you."

Nate paused, then burst out laughing, pathos finally breaking through to the situation.

"Oh God, she's probably still hiding!" he said, between guffaws. The two laughed for a couple seconds, the feeling of it strange, after everything that had happened since they buried Nora. It rang out, bouncing off the rusted metal of the kitchen and past the ruined ceiling joists. The two stood there, trying to find a smile and mostly getting there, Nate's eyes betraying the events of the prior night. MacCready's first instinct was to give him a hug or a clap on the shoulder, but every rational part of his brain was screaming against it. You just didn't risk any of this kind of stuff. Why did he feel this anyway? Was it the whole dead wives thing, because that would just be a little weird. The sons? None of it made sense.

MacCready looked back at Nate and found the weariness had settled back into his face, his head tilted downwards a bit, his soldier's posture slumped. He regretted saying nothing earlier.

Nate finally broke the silence, "So, want to go reassure Piper?" he asked, trying to assume some form of normalcy. MacCready nodded back.  
"Good, you should go...grab your shirt then…"

Nate trailed off, and MacCready looked down to realize he hadn't gotten dressed since Nate reappeared, and immediately panicked. He rushed back down the hall, into the bedroom, and quickly threw on his shirt while fumbling frantically with the buttons. Why did he do that last night, why hadn't he just kept his clothes on? Nate probably figured things out, that's why he paused, he seemed embarrassed...embarrassed? It almost seemed like he was flustered too...

MacCready felt the warmth of infatuation for a moment, then realized it had taken him four times as long to put on a shirt, and he still had half of the buttons left. He finished off quickly, and started fumbling around for his duster, stashed across the hall, threw it on, then finally ran outside into the street.

He looked around trying to find where Nate had gone, or where anyone else might be. A few faint voices led him back behind Sturges' and Mama Murphy's house to the vegetable garden. Nate was already telling his story to the rest of Sanctuary. Preston and Piper looked deeply distressed, Preston's hat on his heart and Piper's hand over her mouth. Mama Murphy had her same usual inscrutable reaction, though you could tell she felt for Nate. MacCready snuck up on this scene quietly and stood next to Piper.

Piper turned to look at MacCready, heartbreak visibly expressed in her opened mouth and tearing eyes. Nate had recapped what he had already told MacCready, and was thinking for a second,

"Before anyone asks, I have no idea what I'm doing now. Shaun might want me to do some things for the Institute. I might be forced to do them. I don't know how this is going to affect you," he concluded, "Sanctuary meeting over, I guess."

Piper stood there biting her lip as the first few people began to leave. MacCready stayed for a second, wondering what in the heck to say. He couldn't imagine Piper would like Nate getting so tied to the Institute she loathed. I mean, fair was fair, and people were messed up, but having it forced on everyone changed things.

"Oh my God, MacCready, what do you think is gonna happen to him?" she asked.

MacCready sighed, "I don't know, but he's gonna pull through. He'd better," he said, spitting out the last two words. Piper scowled, and crossed her arms,

"Really? Tough love, right now? His son isn't his anymore, and that son is out ruining lives across the Commonwealth! I'm going to need you to just…"

"Ugh, Piper, I didn't mean it. Nate can pull together, he has us, right?"

Piper sighed and rolled her eyes, trying to keep some of the usual banter, but she looked sad and defeated nonetheless.

"Shaun kept him going. I don't know what else can for much longer, MacCready," Piper warned. She turned to walk away, "I don't know what to do, but you could, maybe."

She walked off, leaving MacCready alone in the chilly air.

It had killed him to keep him paralyzed for that long, but soon it had been five days, Nate gone off with Piper back to Diamond City to trade and to check on Nat and Publick Occurrences the next day after coming back. Things had been quiet...and well...absence had made the heart grow fonder. MacCready wondered what the hell to do about the whole "Nate feelings" situation, but he knew there were definitely some things he could pin down as being real. Namely, he felt strangely about Nate, that he had definitely loved Lucy, he missed her like hell, Nate had Nora, and he missed her like hell. However, Nate had said that Nora was a best friend. That was pretty damn confusing, Princess from back home grew into a best friend, and he certainly didn't have a kid with her.

MacCready wasn't a complete idiot, he had heard from Daisy that people faked stuff like that all the time, to fit in. From idiots and raiders...or well, their forebears. He had heard a lot from Daisy, and frankly, it was all pretty confusing. All he knew was that he wanted Nate, to be around him, to be with him like he had with Lucy. He hadn't thought that apparently everything went in the Old World except two dudes macking on each other, because apparently that was gross.

It also was concerning to have Nate wandering off away from him; for someone who claimed to be a soldier and could use a power armor suit, he was a horrible shot. It was the reason they had met in the first place, one of the reasons he had spent so much time with Nate. MacCready was someone who like to keep everything in check. Not the spreadsheet, checklist type, but the kind who kept their eyes on a swivel, noticing all the things that could or were starting to go wrong on the fly. Nate was definitely going wrong, and it killed him to not know how exactly to fix this.

So there he stayed, fretting while weeding the garden for Piper and picking the mutfruit trees on top of manning the guard post by the bridge as normal. Thankfully, it gave a good vantage point to see Nate and Piper come into view, walking back from Concord. He couldn't help but laugh and grin, jumping down the stairs and running towards the two to meet them.

"Nate, Piper, glad to see you back!"

"Uh, yeah, RJ, great to be back. How have you been?"  
MacCready could see Piper smirking out of the corner of his eye. She had suspicions, great. He expected talks from her in the very near future, "I've been good, Nate. How'd Diamond City go?"

Piper pitched in, "Pretty good, made 500 caps and Nat's eating her vegetables."

Nate chuckled, "That's not even the half of it, there was this huge thing involving Travis too…"

The three chatted on as they walked across the bridge. Piper broke off, and headed into the house she shared with Preston. Nate walked with MacCready into his house, and closed the door behind them, set down his pack on the kitchen table.

"So, Nate…" MacCready began, his voice a little shaky with the fear that happens when leaving small talk behind, "You look a lot better than you did before you left, how are things now?"

Nate sighed, his mouth turning down at the corners and his eyelids lowering, "A lot better, all things considered. It's nice to be a little busy and get something done, but the Institute and Shaun...it gets to me, it really does."

MacCready nodded, "I get that, I get it so much, but don't you think Shaun made his own choices? He could have done the same things even with you around. Some people, they just...are. Especially the smart ones."

"I get it RJ, but it feels like I failed. Failed more people than just me," Nate opened the door, "Come with me."

MacCready hesitantly followed out back behind the garden and to where they had buried Nora. The grave still stood, cross a bit crooked, name still hard to read. Nate bowed his head, and MacCready took off his cap and placed it on his chest, just to pay his respects as well,

"I failed Nora, RJ. She was the one who wanted a baby, wanted to live here, wanted to make things better. She was one of my closest friends, and I couldn't stop the last trace of her left from breaking, or getting...corrupted."

MacCready stood, hat and hand fallen to his side, head turned quizzically, looking concerned, "Aren't you just as much tied to her as Shaun? You were her husband…"

Nate sighed, "Yes, but not her lover. She trusted me, only really felt comfortable around me, but we weren't lovers. I...I don't know how to explain this, but promise me you won't run, or be disgusted, right?"

"Nate, I wouldn't do that," MacCready said, walking towards Nate, clapping an arm on his shoulder, "I trust you, enough to take out Winlock and Barnes. I don't up and run that easily."  
Nate smiled a bit, eyes a bit misty, "You sure? If you are, it means a lot."

MacCready chuckled, "I am sure, and it does mean a lot. I don't trust just anyone."

"Well then RJ," Nate began, "I...I...I'm gay."

Nate paused and froze his entire body, waiting for the world to stop, it seemed. Whatever he had just said, it sounded important to him. MacCready just didn't actually know what that was. Either way, the crows still cawed, the branches still rustled, and Marcy Long kept complaining from the tato patch. He waited for Nate to explain further, but all Nate did was just try to look stoic and gaze off into the distance away from MacCready, as if everyone was about to throw rocks at him. MacCready figured he needed to ask Nate himself,

"So...uh, what is that?"

Nate paused, and looked utterly confused but still tense and scared, "It...it means I like men, RJ. Sexually," he spat out, the clinical tones of sexually turning into a murmur, too concrete and forthright to say properly.

MacCready was a bit incredulous. That was it? He didn't know that called it "gay," Daisy didn't tell him that part. Welp, he called it, he was right. Now what?"

"That's...that's all?"

Nate looked bewildered, surprised to the point of seeming a bit annoyed, "What do you mean 'that's all?'"

MacCready could feel the awkward tension in his bones and tendons, tightening his joints, "I mean," he began hesitantly, not trying to somehow make Nate angry, "There's lots of people like that. There's a friend of mine back from my Lamplight days, she just likes girls."

The quasi-anger melted off Nate's face, and he began to laugh uproariously, bending over to slap his knee, "Really, it's not a big deal anymore?" he asked in between breaths, "The bombs fall and everyone dies, but at least you can kiss guys!" Nate kept laughing and laughing, "God, I thought everyone would hate it even more now."

MacCready was just straight up weirded out and really out of the loop right now, "No, why would anyone do that?"

Nate took a few more seconds to finally calm down, and finally stood up straight. He looked a lot better, a lot more vital than MacCready had been used to seeing him lately, "I don't know, RJ, everyone needed to repopulate the Earth or something."

"Ok Nate, that's decent enough reasoning, but why the hell didn't they like stuff like that Pre-War? I'm honestly really confused right now."

Nate paused, at a loss for words, "Y'know there never really was a set reason why."

MacCready's mouth fell open, "You've got to be fu...freaking kidding me."

Nate shrugged, and continued, "Well, it was more complicated than that. A long time ago, religions didn't like it much, only liked sex for childbearing. But for most of the 21st Century, it was just a conformity thing. Before the bombs, you had to be a really specific person. Get good grades in school. Join the army if you're a guy, go to college after, but don't get too smart. Have kids, but not too early or too late, and eventually your wife will stop working to raise the kids. You were seen as pretty untrustworthy and kinda scummy if you didn't follow these rules, end of story."

"I see," MacCready answered, "I guess us lowlife wastelanders are held to different standards."

"No," Nate reassured, "Things are different now.

"If you say so," MacCready said, still a bit uncertain. He took a moment to look down at Nora's grave, "So if you like men, why did you marry her?"

"Mom and Dad would hate my guts," Nate quipped, "But really though, Nora liked girls, I liked guys, we figured we'd just cover for each other, y'know? We met in high school, and stayed close afterwards. Long story short, we were inseparable. So we played along together."

"Makes sense. Awful, but it makes sense," MacCready concluded. He hesitated for a moment, then finally worked up the courage to ask, "So...have you actually slept with a man?"

Nate looked sheepish and bit his lip, "No," he answered, and clearly was embarrassed by that, "Do you know anyone who has?"

MacCready digged back in his memories to a lot of times he would rather forget, "Yeah, actually, I do."

Nate perked up, "Really, you do? I guess it would be nice, to just do what I want to for a change."

MacCready grinned, "I can't imagine getting laid would be so bad either."

He froze immediately after saying that, his eyes widening. Oh crap, he had honestly just said that. He was coming on to him at his wife's grave. His wife's fucking grave.

Nate saw his nervousness and laughed, "It's okay RJ, you're right. I've thought about it for a long time, anyway."

"Yeah, yeah, it's fine. Just went elsewhere for a second," MacCready said, "You gonna be okay Nate?"

Nate nodded, "Honestly, yeah, I will be."

Nate looked down on Nora's grave, and sighed. He started walking over to a nearby stand of trees.

"Actually, RJ, I feel a lot better than I did," Nate said, picking a few hubflower blossoms off of a bush. He went over and placed them on Nora's grave.

"I miss Nora so much, but we both would have truly wanted to not have to lie. Maybe that's how I keep her memory going."

MacCready smiled a bit, "Yeah, maybe."

MacCready turned away and walked down the street. He was happy for Nate for now, but he was mortified himself now. It was easy to pine when you could look, but not touch, but when the barriers beyond your own control came down, it was easy to see what you yourself weren't capable of. He really wanted something with Nate, but he just didn't know how to love a man like that. Past experiences had been...well, they hadn't been very good. You got on, you got off...or at least the stronger one did.

He wanted to love Nate, now all he had to do was just do it.


End file.
